MOSCOW, December 23 (RAPSI) – Environmental campaign group Greenpeace’s Russia branch has filed a request with the Prosecutor General's Office to look into the validity of oil production on Gazprom's Prirazlomnaya offshore oil rig, the group says.
Greenpeace claims the company has breached several provisions of federal environmental protection and safety laws. The group set out each violation in a separate message to the Prosecutor General's Office and requested an immediate response.
Last Friday, Gazprom, Russia's state-run gas monopoly, announced the start of operations at the Prirazlomnaya rig, the first Russian oil exploration project on the Arctic shelf. The Prirazlomnaya field, opened in 1989, is located in the shelf of Pechora Sea, some 60 km (36 miles) offshore at a depth of around 20 meters (66 feet).
On September 18, Greenpeace activists attempted to scale the Prirazlomnaya rig in protest at Arctic drilling. Next day, their ship, the icebreaker Arctic Sunrise, was seized by Russian border guards in international waters within Russia's exclusive economic zone, and its crew arrested.
Greenpeace and other environmental groups oppose drilling for oil in the Arctic because they say that it is currently impossible to organize a thorough clean-up of potential oil spills in the region, and that drilling there cannot be economically viable.
